Published 4:00 am, Friday, March 2, 2007

It's been nearly five years since Walnut Creek renamed its Easter Bunny the "Spring Bunny," but the name change became news on Thursday after a resident wrote a letter to the editor protesting it.

City spokesman Brad Rovanpera said he was surprised by the media buzz and TV news trucks outside City Hall Thursday, attracted by a change instituted in 2003 with no controversy. The city's Spring Bunny reigns over annual "Spring Egg Hunts" in two city parks.

"This will be the fifth year we are doing it that way," Rovanpera said. "This is the first complaint that I have ever heard. In fact, no one has ever complained to the city that we know of. This is from a letter to the editor."

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But the author of the letter that a local paper published Wednesday, a former newspaper reporter named Michael Runzler, said banishing the word "Easter" from the bunny and the eggs strikes a nerve with many people. He is happy the story is getting attention, even if belatedly.

"First people can't wish 'Merry Christmas' at a store, and now they've taken Easter away from the Easter Bunny," Runzler said in an interview Thursday. "Everyone is welcome to celebrate what they want to celebrate, but if you're offended by an Easter Bunny or an Easter egg, then maybe you should not participate."

Runzler, a 12-year resident of the city, said he first noticed the "Spring Bunny" when he received a guide to events at city parks several weeks ago.

"I was just very surprised that the Easter Bunny had been banned in favor of a Spring Bunny," Runzler said. "It's particularly bad because this year's events (on April 7) are the day before Easter."

But Runzler, whose kids are past egg-hunt age, didn't realize the change had taken place years ago and has long been listed as the "Spring Egg Hunt" on the city's Web site and in city publications.

For decades, hundreds of small children and their parents have participated in city-sponsored events at Larkey Park and Heather Farm Community Center.

Rovanpera said the city renamed the bunny and the egg-hunt events after receiving a complaint from a Jewish resident in 2001 who said she was concerned that the city was sponsoring an event linked to religion.

"I've worked here since 1985, and that was the first complaint I remember about the term 'Easter,' " Rovanpera said. "We adopted a more generic name for the event and things just moved on."

The debate may echo the so-called "War on Christmas" battles in which a coalition of conservative talk radio hosts and religious groups have tried to prod companies to greet customers with "Merry Christmas" instead of the more generic "Happy Holidays."

Last year there were complaints reported in Minnesota when some malls renamed their bunnies and eggs to delete the term "Easter." But overall there has been much less controversy, as some cities, such as Danville, have switched to "Spring Bunny" while others, including Oakland, stick to Easter.

"The bunny is a fertility symbol with no religious connection to Easter," added Cunningham who was the Christianity editor for the in the HarperCollins Dictionary of Religion. "The egg, which was popularized in Greece, Russia and Eastern Europe in connection with Easter, does not have a religious connection to Easter. By taking away the term 'Easter,' these symbols to some extent return to their pre-Christian roots as symbols of spring fertility."